ALEXANDER OSMERKIN (RUSSIAN 1892-1953) Still Life with a Torso of Venus, circa 1951 oil on canvas 80 x 94 cm (31 1/2 x 37 in.) signed, dated and titled in Cyrillic on verso [initials and date altered in 1975 upon emigration of family from the USSR] PROVENANCE Property of the Family of Alexander Osmerkin, to the present day. EXPERTISE The nephew of the artist, son of Rostislav Osmerkin (brother of Alexander Osmerkin), has provided a notarized letter of provenance and identity to be sold with this painting, a copy of which is available upon request. LOT NOTES Aleksandr Osmerkin was an avant-garde Russian (Soviet) artist and pedagogue, best known as one of the members of "The Jack of Diamonds" group along Pyotr Konchalovsky, Mikhail Larionov, and Ilya Mashkov. Born in 1892 in present-day Ukraine, Osmerkin first entered the St. Petersburg Art School at the Society of Encouraging Artists at the age of 18 (where one of his classmates was Nicholas Roerich) and then the Kiev Art School, until traveling to Moscow in 1913 to study under Mashkov. The following year, Osmerkin began exhibiting with "The Jack of Diamonds" and made the acquaintances of Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, and Sergei Esenin, among others. In 1918-1947 Osmerkin was active mainly as a professor at various art institutions in St. Petersburg and Moscow (such as VKhUTEMAS and the Imperial Academy of Arts), until forced to resign from his position under accusations of formalism. The following still life, made soon after these accusations, is, like many works of "The Jack of Diamonds" artists and Osmerkin in particular, heavily influenced by post-impressionism (especially Cezanne), Fauvism, and Cubism. With its beautifully modeled vases, torso of Venus and smaller Hellenic statuette staged against billowing folds of colorful drapery, Osmerkin - who during these late years of his life became an underground artist - confronts the prevailing ideology of Social Realism in favor of an impressionistic and academic still life. The rapid brushwork, a mainstay feature of Osmerkin`s work, is coupled here with more refined forms typical of his late period.22500